1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to safety gates, specifically to safety gates that are adapted to keep children and/or pets in or out of a designated room or area by adapting such gates for easy mounting to, storage on and removal from modern doors and doorway construction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Safety gates of various designs are currently available for the purpose of keeping children and/or pets confined to a room or "safe" area. Although these gates typically satisfy the requirement of confining a child or pet in a designated area, they can be cumbersome to install and difficult to manage once installed. Further, such installation problems for such prior art safety gates will be exacerbated by nonstandard or poorly fitted or constructed doors and doorways.
The design challenge for these safety devices includes adaptability to a wide range of doorway formats and construction, openness to the designated safe area so that the guardian(s) remain aware of what is transpiring in the designated safe area and the provision of easy passage into and out of the designated safe area by a guardian, all without compromising the basic safety or movement restriction features of such gates. In addition, it is desirable to provide such gates with detachable, movable or temporary mounting capability so that the gates may be quickly and efficiently switched from an operative to an inoperative, non-intrusive mode and back again. These requirements have led to designs in which installation can be complex, cumbersome and/or intrusive resulting in safety gate operation that is inconsistent with and often ineffective for their intended purpose.
One problem that is often encountered by designers and users of safety gates is the wide variety of doorways used in homes, offices and other buildings. In order to compensate for the disadvantages of various doorway designs while attempting to maintain ease of use, various springs, levers, brackets and, in some cases permanent hardware, such as screws, are used to install, secure and support the main gate. Further, because doors and doorways vary in size and construction, it is a problem to insure that safety gates are easily and properly located in a secure manner.
When spring loaded gate supports are used to span the doorway opening, there is a high probability that the gate will become dislodged by the pet or child in the designated safe area applying their weight against the gate or by another child trying to gain entry to the designated safe area. This is due to the false reliance on spring loading and friction being sufficient to hold the gate in place, which cannot be guaranteed at all times. Consider, for example, a newly polished wood door frame or a painted door frame where the oils in the polish or the too smooth painted surfaces will minimize the friction between the spring loaded gate support and the door frame. Other factors such as the care taken in installation by different guardians, product wear and regular installation and removals can all lead to variations in mounting stability, thus exposing the reliability of the gate if pushed against by the child or pet.
Some previously and currently available designs address the instability of spring loaded gates by using permanent mounting hardware such as screws or other securing mechanisms. These designs typically require some level of expertise to install. Tools are usually required for the installation and damage to the door frame (e.g. screw holes) is common. Unfortunately, most of these designs leave the safety gate fully or partially exposed in the doorway or passageway to which they are secured thereby converting such gates to safety hazards when they are not in use. In addition, the exposed securing mechanisms may be subjected to tampering or accidental damage which further limits their effectiveness and trustworthiness.
Potentially, the greatest design challenge is to offer an effective, safe barrier that also allows for ease of passage by the guardian. Some types of gates available today require the guardian to step over or disengage the gate, which can be difficult and potentially dangerous, particularly if one is carrying a child or another object. Other designs require the guardian to retract and/or remove the gate to allow for passage. This is not user friendly and can allow time for a pet or child to escape the designated safe area. Such gates also require the guardian to readjust and resecure the gate.
Swing gates are built into some of the designs which allows for relatively easy passage by the guardian. Here the user is essentially are provided with a gate within a gate, which is usually a considerably more complex and expensive design. In addition, the mounting hardware in these designs span the base of the doorway thus creating a potential trip hazard while simultaneously exposing the mounting hardware to damage that could compromise the effectiveness and operation of the swing gate assembly.
There are also many other types of devices and arrangements that provide limited or restricted access to designated areas and/or serve to insulate or protect designated areas from intrusions by unwanted materials. In most instances, these are security devices or insulating barriers or conduits that are not intended to serve the same purpose of or function as a safety gate, although they may have a limited number of features in common.
One early device for restricting access to a designated area is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 168,455, which issued to Cook et al. The Cook et al arrangement provides for a perforated doorjamb in a prison cell so that activity within the cell can be monitored without compromising security of the cell. The perforated jamb is itself provided with a secondary door so that it can be covered when its viewing capability is not required.
Another early device is the insulating door shield described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,970,836 to Benson. The Benson device, intended as an alternative to commonly available storm doors, was removable fastened to a permanent door and pivoted therewith without interfering with the functioning of the permanent door.
An environmental barrier device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,053 to Biesenthal This device, called a "Jiffy Jamb", is provided with interior conduits and fits between the open door of a building and its doorjamb movably filling the open space therebetween while permitting hoses, electrical wires, tubing, piping and like carriers to pass through its conduits into the building. This device allows access to and egress from the building while in use yet it seals the open space against loss of heat and intrusion by children, pets or insects when operational. Unfortunately, the "Jiffy Jamb" is cumbersome to mount and limits ordinary use of the doorway in which it is employed.
An interlocking door guard is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,906 to Knapp. The Knapp guard is intended to secure a permanent door against unwanted, forced entry. It is a security device that is movably mounted to the permanent door and designed to absorb the stress of forced intrusion without causing the casing or hinges of the permanent door to fail.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,614 to Spurling describes an improved safety gate and prior art thereto for preventing the unwanted passage of a child or pet to or from a room. The Spurling gate, which is adapted to be mounted on the sidewalls at the top or bottom of a stairway or on the sidewalls of a door frame features a mounting rail with pivoting means fixed to one sidewall of a stairway or door frame and having pivoting means, a locking post that is fixed to the other a sidewall thereof and a removable, expandable gate frame assembly which includes multiple latching means and a locking bar. The gate frame assembly, once placed on the mounting rail, can be secured to the locking bar to prevent access to a protected stairway or access to or egress from a room, or unlocked and pivoted back and forth across the stairway or open doorway when passage therethrough is not intended to be restricted.
The Spurling gate was intended to overcome the deficiencies of and replace the then popular frictionally engageable gate which expanded into a locked position, but was prone to being pushed over and disengaged. This improvement was achieved at the cost of convenience and of having to permanently secure gate mountings to the door frame where the gate was to be used. This meant that each door frame of every room or area to be secured had to have gate mountings permanently attached thereto.
Australian Patent Number 238,215 to Le Bon et al teaches a child barrier that may be conveniently locked in a releasable closed position when a door with which it is associated is opened or the gate itself is opened when restricted access is no longer desired. In the Le Bon arrangement, one end of the barrier gate is pivotally secured to the door itself near the door hinges and the other end, having a locking pin secured at the top portion therefor is removably clipped in place by its locking pin on the door. When restriction is required, the gate is unclipped and swung toward the door jamb to engage its locking pin in a stop plate fitted into the door jamb sidewall.
One of the major drawbacks of the Le Bon gate is that permanent door mountings have to be used. This will permanently mar the door and this damage will be readily apparent when the time comes to remove the gate. This gate mounting is aesthetically intrusive and can be seen when the door is partially or fully closed. In addition, the door becomes a large lever which, when pushed or leaned against from the front by a large pet or by a child, can pull the locking pin out of engagement and release the gate. In the alternative, pressure applied against the back of the door can jam the locking pin in its stop plate and make the gate difficult to release. Lastly, the hollow interior doors in common use today make the door mountings prone to failure when pressure is applied to the door.
Thus, in one way or another, the prior safety gates all suffered from inherent problems that compromised their ease of use, installation, security, convenience and appearance.